The Cordillera Huayhuash of Peru's High Andes

I took a bus south from Huaraz to the small town of Chiquian, where I met Ezer Santos, my burro handler (arriero) for a 9 day circuit around the Cordillera Huayhuash (pronounced "why-wash") mountain range. I had arranged the trek through Galaxia, an agency in Huaraz. Ezer did not speak English, but I had brought my notes from a self-study Spanish course, with the English on left side of the page and the Spanish equivalent on the right. Ezer and I shared the notes for "escuela de espagnol y ingles" on most afternoons. I learned more Spanish during this trek than the remainder of the trip.

According to Lonely Planet's "Trekking in the Central Andes," "the Cordillera Huayhuash is the world-famous Cordillera Blanca's tougher, forgotten, smaller brother." It did not disappoint. Unfortunately, Lonely Planet Peru now features the Huayhuash trek instead of other ones in the area, so it's solitude will soon be spoiled.

The Huayhuash mountain range is only about 30 miles long. The trek around it is about 100 miles, and we were usually done by noon each day. However, I kept pace with Ezer and the burros, which did not appear to be the normal way of doing things based upon what I saw with other groups. Most of the trek was 13,000 to 16,400 ft above sea level. The third day we merged our group of 2 (plus 3 burros) with a group of 3 Aussies and their guide, arriero, and burros. (A guide has a different job than an arriero -- the guide is responsible for the humans, the arriero for the burros -- that's partly why I kept up with Ezer, because I lacked a guide and didn't really know the route. Of course, hiring both a guide and an arriero costs more.) The Aussies --Deanne, Nicole, and Robbie -- were a lot of fun. We ended up trekking together for the next 4 days. The weather was virtually perfect for the entire 9 days, with only a light drizzle one afternoon after we were already in camp, and clouds that obscured Mount Huascaran to the north in the Cordillera Blanca, which is the highest tropical peak in the world at 22,200 ft (6,770 m).

It is possible to hire a car from the town of Llamac to Matacancha (top left of map), but I didn't know that so I walked from Llamac. East is at the top of the map.

My favorite experiences of the trek follow:

The campsite at Lake Carhuacocha on day 2 was magnificent, with (left to right) the peaks of Siula Grande, Yerupaja, and Yerupaja Chico, towering above, all over 20,000 ft (6,100 m) with Yerupaja, at 21,700 ft (6,620 m), almost 1,500 ft taller than Mt. McKinley.

The above photos were taken from our camp on a ledge above the lake. The left was taken when we arrived in the afternoon, the right at sunset.

The photo below was taken at sunset by pivoting to the right, depicting the summits of Yerupaja Chico, Jirishanca, and Jirishanca Chico (left to right). In the foreground, smoke ascending from the charred flanks of Yerupaja Chico is visible -- the indigenous people burn the slopes to try to induce rain. (It's plausible to me that the smoke would add particles to the air for water to condense upon to form raindrops.)

Left: The sister summits of Yerupaja and Yerupaja Chico reflected in Lake Carhuacocha the next morning.

On day 3, we took the "Lake Siula high route" above Lake Carhuacocha, beside glaciers tumbling down the peaks we saw from the lake, with lake-filled moraines at their bases.

Below: Jirishanca towering above grazing horses on our way to the Lake Siula high route.

Below: Icebergs floating atop lake of name unknown to me, greenish turquoise from glacial silt.

Above left: Lakes Quesillococha (foreground) and Siula, with unnamed ice lake barely visible beyond and Jirishanca's distinctive triangular summit of snow and bare rock centered on the horizon.

Below right: On the high route, glacier on southeast face of Siula Grande, with close-up at left.

Right: On day 4, we camped by the hot springs and shambled ruins of the regional Shining Path headquarters near Lake Viconga. (The Shining Path committed some of its first acts of violence nearby.)

Left: It was a perfect place for the Shining Path's base: the hot springs within 1/4 mile, and their buildings were the very first part of the valley hit by the morning sun.

One of the daily rituals on the trek involved maneuvering into sunlight in the morning. At that elevation, it dropped considerably below freezing at night. However, the tropical sun quickly drove away the cold.

On day 5, at San Antonio Pass, I saw the most incredible view of my life, of Siula Grande (20,800 ft), Sarapo (20,100 ft), Carnicero (19,550 ft), Jurau (18,400 ft), and Trapecio (18,500 ft), with the glacial teal-colored lakes Sarapococha, Santa Rosa, and Jurau at their bases. Deanne traveled all over the Himilayas of Nepal and said she never saw a vista as impressive as this one. Condors soared up and over the pass and around us. Left to right below are Deanne, Robbie, and Nicole.

Siula Grande is the tallest peak in the photo. It was made famous by Joe Simpson's book "Touching the Void," in which he describes his near-death on the mountain: He and his partner Simon Yates were the first people to summit this (the west) face of Siula Grande, but on the way down Simpson fell and broke his knee. Yates held Simpson's weight on the rope for over an hour as a blizzard formed, until he realized he had to cut Simpson free in order to save his own life. He cut Simpson loose, then found the crevasse that Simpson fell into, but not Simpson, and assumed he had died. Yates descended to base camp, where he and the crew waited 4 days in case Simpson survived. He arrived mere hours before they left. He had found a way out of the crevasse and pulled himself with his arms down the mountain. Simpson is said to have forgiven Yates, because the decision was necessary and he would have made the same choice. His book has been made into a movie of the same name.

Ezer and I separated from the Aussies the day after we climbed to San Antonio Pass, because they were taking a sidetrip climb up Diablo Mudo (17,550 ft). (I was planning to attempt 20,000 ft Mt. Chachani later in the trip.)

On day 8, our final campsite at Lake Yahuacocha was spectacular, with huge glaciers tumbling down Jirishanca (21,000 ft) and Rondoy (19,300 ft) into the lake, with Yerupaja Grande (21,700 ft) and Yerupaja Chico (20,080 ft) to the side. That night we merged our camp with that of 2 Polish men, Andre and Mikhail, who had trekked all over Nepal in 2007 and agreed with Deanne that the view from San Antonio Pass was superior to anything they had seen there. Ezer caught about a dozen trout that afternoon for the group's dinner.

Left: Our descent to Lake Yahuacocha with Rondoy and Jirishanca obscured by clouds.

Right: One-armed cement cross atop moraine at base of lake (other arm broken off).

Below: Sunrise the next morning, with Rondoy and Jirishanca casting shadows in the mist, and Yerupaja Chico and the massive Yerupaja hulking on the right of the horizon. Cattle grazing in the foreground.

We hiked out to Chiquian that morning. No backpacking trip I have ever taken compares to this one around the Cordillera Huayhuash.

*************************************************************************************************** Though I didn't visit it, a similar but larger (and much more touristed) mountain range is situated just to the north, the Cordillera Blanca, which also uses Huaraz as its base. It contains Peru's tallest mountain, El Huascaran (pictured at left), which is the fourth tallest peak in South America and the tallest mountain in the tropics at 6,768 m (22,200 ft). The Cordillera Blanca are located in Huascaran National Park, which is also a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

The range includes Alpamayo (pictured below), which was deemed "the most beautiful mountain in the world" in a 1966 international survey of mountaineers, photographers, and others. Its elevation is 5,947 m (19,511 ft) and it can be viewed from all sides by forming a loop combining the Alpamayo Base Camp trek around its north face with the (very popular) Santa Cruz trek around its south side, both featured in Lonely Planet's "Trekking the Central Andes". I copied these pics of Huascaran and Alpamayo from the web.